After a decade studying and working in Australia, Swazi-born Roberto Russo had just been granted citizenship when he took a phone call from his father in Swaziland. The telephone conversation was to change his life’s trajectory overnight.
“I never thought of coming back to Swaziland. I was happy in Perth. But when my old man said to me he was thinking about selling the business I thought ‘what is the worst that can happen?’ I can always go back to Australia. I have not looked back,” says the 35-year-old Russo.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4686" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/001-1-224x300.jpg" alt="" width="224" height="300" />
The lay of the land for entrepreneurs in Swaziland and Australia are poles apart. Australia is an open democratic society with a large middle class customer base, government support for emerging businesses, and perched on the doorstep of Asia’s huge and burgeoning economies.
Swaziland is an undemocratic feudal society ruled by sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, King Mswati III. It has a population of 1.3 million, the majority living in poverty, unemployed or practising subsistence agriculture, and a government actively favoring international and local corporations at the expense of small and medium enterprises.
To compound its reputation as an entrepreneurial backwater, Swaziland’s tentative claim to being a stepping stone between the economies of South Africa and Mozambique is wishful thinking at best.
In reality, the construction of world class road infrastructure between the industrial and business hubs of Johannesburg and the port city of Maputo has left Swaziland out of the loop. The South African city of Mbombela boomed at Swaziland’s expense by servicing the trade route.
Swaziland’s national economy is habitually mismanaged for the benefit of Mswati and his expansive royal household and was one of the factors resulting in the country flirting with a financial meltdown in the wake of the global recession in 2008. A lifeline of a $335-million loan from neighboring South Africa was refused as the fine print included political reforms. Financial oblivion was only averted after the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), discovered that Swaziland, as a customs union member, was eligible for an $88 million windfall in 2012 and it came with no strings attached.
The financial crisis was caused by a drop of more than 50% in SACU receipts as a consequence of the recession and squeezed Swaziland’s public sector wage bill that accounts for about 18% of the approximately $4 billion GDP – the highest ratio on the continent.
Russo was clearly looking through a different lens at the business opportunities that existed when he decided to return home in the midst of the country’s financial crisis and swing for the entrepreneurial fences. In the eight years since buying out his father, his businesses have grown eightfold to record a $10 million annual turnover. Russo’s stable includes a paint manufacturer, tool supplier and advertising firm.
Swaziland’s proximity to Mozambique has proved an advantage against Russo’s South African competitors.
“We export seven to eight tons of paint daily to Mozambique. Purely on geography we are able to load two trucks in the morning and make delivery and they are back by 5PM,” he says.
Sandwiched between two countries allows for different business strategies for each, while also benefitting from lower water, electricity and labor costs. Mozambique provides for bulk paint sales, while the South African market offers a niche that sidesteps the competition from South Africa’s thousands of paint manufacturers.
The company supplies specialized paints to a Johannesburg-based architectural firm, including insect repellant paint for malarial areas and paint that can be applied in wet weather.
“We are small enough to be able to custom-make our product to fit client needs… the bigger guys would ask ‘look, how big is the project?’ and it would not be worth their while,” he says.
“One of the downsides of being such a small, isolated country is that you get comfortable at what you are doing, even though you do it well. It’s important to attend tradeshows and ensure we remain current, to give us a competitive advantage.”
Technical staff recruitment can also be difficult.
“There is only a small pool of paint chemists that you can get hold of in southern Africa… but people are quite naive. People in South Africa think that Swaziland is a small little farm town. People that do know the lifestyle we live in Swaziland would come at the drop of hat.”
Swaziland’s formal economy is dominated by corporates, from telecoms to sugar producers. At its center, and controlled by King Mswati III and his coterie, is the opaque Tibiyo TakaNgwane, meaning  wealth of the nation, fund that has shares in many foreign and local corporates operating across diverse sectors.
Tibiyo was envisioned as a national empowerment vehicle and was established by Mswati’s father King Sobhuza II after independence in 1968. From its small beginnings, where every Swazi man was required to donate to it, usually a cow, the fund has grown to an estimated $2 billion. Like Mswati, whose personal fortune was put at $200 million by FORBES in 2008, the fund is exempt from tax, as well as civil and criminal scrutiny.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4688" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Swaziland-Lynette-Fraser-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
The fund’s rapid expansion is attributed to many factors, including eviction of small-scale farmers without compensation to grab some of the country’s best agricultural lands for the fund’s sugar interests and the government’s favoritism for contracts, tenders and beneficial regulations to foreign and local corporates the fund has stakes in.
Swaziland has the trappings of a democracy, but is not recognized as one. Mswati and his royal household, government and the state have become all but indivisible.
A small business owner based in Manzini with an annual turnover of R10 million ($770,000), who declined to be identified, says “If you fly too high, you are going to come short if you come up against businesses with government interests.”
“The main driver of business in Swaziland is the government. Pretty much everyone is dependent or indirectly dependent on government,” he says.
Lynette Fraser, Russo’s 38-year-old sister, established her own water bottling business, Viva Beverages, through purifying municipal water using reverse osmosis. She sells about 100,000 500ml bottles monthly and is able to compete with her South African competitors through lower transport costs. There was a business spike recently for sales of her five liter water bottles, after the capital Mbabane experienced debilitating water shortages, where Matsapha did not.
In recent years, she says there is a growing number of entrepreneurs opening businesses, where in the past “a lot of people would go to Johannesburg because the opportunities are just so vast.”
Excluding sugar production, about 90% of Swaziland’s economic activity occurs in the Mbabane, Matsapha, Manzini corridor and entrepreneurs recognize the benefits of businesses being concentrated within easy reach of each other.
But government business involvement remains a debilitating factor. Founder and Managing Director of the internet service provider Real Image, Ali Resting, has wrestled with government for deregulation of the sector, especially a legislative clause giving Swaziland Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (SPTC) exclusive rights for importing bandwidth, resulting in hugely inflated and uncompetitive internet costs stifling investment.
“The first question investors ask is if connectivity is reasonably priced? …It does deter investors if they are spending huge amounts of money towards connectivity, when they shouldn’t have to,” says Resting.
Deregulation would not only act as a lure for companies to invest in Swaziland, it would also benefit connectivity in the region.
“There is an opportunity for Swaziland to become a transit location between Johannesburg, Durban and Mozambique by using it as a conduit for fiber infrastructure. If you can position yourselves to have the shortest route, because the internet is distance sensitive, it makes more sense to go through Swaziland… it’s a huge opportunity,” says Resting.
For entrepreneurs in Swaziland, opportunities seem to be limited to the government.

The Call  Of The African Kingdom

A political science student felt so angry and so strongly about a statue that early one morning he woke and drove to one of the townships on the fringes of Cape Town. Here he picked up a bucket of faeces, heavy from the night before. He put the stinking bucket into his car and drove to the University of Cape Town (UCT).
For the last few hundred yards, Chumani Maxwele, put the bucket on his shoulder. He wore running tights and a pink construction hat and clearly had no respect. His destination was the green lawns and scented flowers of the entrance to the university. He took a deep breath and threw the manure into the face of one of the world’s most famous colonialists who had died more than a century before.
<div id="attachment_4680" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4680" class="size-medium wp-image-4680" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Chumane-Maxwele-047-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />Chumane Maxwele</div>
Maxwele was an angry Africanist who didn’t feel this face fitted in his continent; the face belonged to the statue of arch-imperialist Cecil John Rhodes, who died just down the road in his beach house at Muizenberg in 1902, and who donated the land to the university.
“The statue was a political symbol. Even when Rhodes was still alive and now dead, he represents a particular symbol of black people in pain, suffering and dispossession. If you look at the images of Rhodes, it’s all these African people lying with horses, his articulations and so on, you can tell there’s a direct relation between Rhodes and UCT, and UCT being controlled by white people. And there’s a direct relation with who controls the economy of the country and the state of black people. And yet the university takes so much pride in the man,” says Maxwele.
The bucket of faeces launched the Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) campaign. After a month of unrest and consultations at the university, the statue was transferred to a museum in Cape Town.
The anger from UCT reverberated across the country, with dozens of colonial statues defaced or destroyed by angry youth. Louis Botha, the first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, survived two wars but couldn’t dodge the red paint of protesters outside Parliament in Cape Town.
Exactly two years after Maxwele started the campaign, FORBES AFRICA spoke to the man in Cape Town. He had just left the gym, dressed in blue and white shirt, tight blue jeans and black brogues. He kept his composure throughout but his emphasis to decolonize the university was as sharp as it was two years ago. He looked nothing like the rabble-rouser portrayed in the newspapers.
“The process of bringing the poo to the statue, it was within political education in this country. People talk about townships and health issues at the university level, and yet these things are really happening. Us black people, we are there, we know these things first hand. People keep the poo buckets in their rooms at night, and in the morning take them to the pavement. And kids play with them, no one cares. I thought I might as well bring one to the university, as a way of saying there’s a problem there but at the same time addressing the racial problems at UCT,” says Maxwele.
At face value, Maxwele’s campaign can be simplified as only against Rhodes’ statue but the man insists there’s more to it than meets the eye.
“There are a lot of complicated issues involved in Rhodes Must Fall. Coming to the university as a rural African student, you are sort of told to leave who you are at the university’s entrance. There’s so much institutional and personal racism going on. Part of my protest was to exhibit white arrogance and black assimilation into the university system,” says Maxwele.
“On the question of curriculum, what is being taught and who is teaching it, and how it is being taught. There’s no way you are going to talk about the brutal killing of black people with what it deserves as a white person. UCT doesn’t recognize apartheid.”
Maxwele says black students and academics have accepted they must assimilate to survive. They fear they’ll be excluded and persecuted like he was.
“It is not easy to be honest to your cause. I have been suspended by the university for two years in 2015 and 2016,” he says.
In September last year, the anti-statue feeling spread to the University of Ghana where students and academics petitioned for the removal of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue. The protesters claimed the proponent of non-violence was racist and the university must replace his statue with an African hero.
The President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, unveiled the statue in June last year at the University of Ghana campus as a symbol of close ties between the two countries.
Gandhi, a native of India, spent 21 years in South Africa as a lawyer and civil rights activist. More than half a century after his assassination in India, like Cecil John Rhodes, Gandhi’s legacy divides the world.
Ashwin Desai, a professor of sociology in South Africa and co-author of The South African Gandhi: Stretcher-Bearer of Empire, wrote that Gandhi was never a saint, not even close.
“Some youngsters recently defaced Gandhi’s statue in Johannesburg for his perceived racism, while others demanded the defaming of Nelson Mandela, seen as a figure of excessive compromise who heralded disastrous economic policies…” says Desai.
The fervour and anger around statues grows. Many philosophers give reasons for this. The only certainty is if you put up a statue in Africa, be assured someone will want to tear it down.

Chumane-Maxwele-047

The Fight Over  Statues  Never Stands Still

Supra Mahumapelo, the Premier of South Africa’s North West province and staunch ally of President Jacob Zuma, is the man leading the way. He wants to build a statue on the remote spot where police arrested Zuma on his way to Botswana with uMkhonto weSizwe recruits, the armed wing of the ANC, in 1963. It would stand in the dusty rural town of Zeerust, in the north of the country. Zuma spent 10 years on Robben Island, after the run-in with police on this spot, but protesters don’t seem to care.
“We are disappointed the Premier wants to erect a statue, he’s spending more time in planning what he is going to do with the statue, rather than spending time dealing with corruption. We will call upon Barutsi people in Zeerust not to allow a statue on their soil. The statue of Jacob Zuma will go nowhere to solve their critical need for services, as water supply fails daily, waste water treatment plants lie unusable and broken, and the inhumane bucket system still plagues our people. We need service [delivery] rather than statues. We are saying the Premier must reconsider this and listen to the plight of the people. Mahumapelo’s priorities are clearly disturbingly skewed to praise Jacob Zuma, rather than to deliver to the people,” says Joe McGluwa, the provincial leader of the opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA).
McGluwa says the Premier is acting as a law unto himself by planning to honor Zuma – who has been in power since 2009 and has 783 pending criminal charges.
“He spoke about celebrating the lives of all those who were in the struggle. President Zuma is still alive and there’s no need to erect a statue for him. Even worse, he has been linked to a number of corrupt activities. The president of this country, better known as JZ 783, doesn’t deserve a statue, he’s a broken president, he broke the law, he broke the constitution, he acted in contrast of his own oath. The honorable thing is to retreat from what they are doing.”
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), another opposition party in the province, acknowledged Zuma’s role in the liberation struggle, but they are also against the statue.
“Zuma is not exemplary and has multiple cases of fraud. Why must we honor him, why must we celebrate him? He’s broken his oath of office, he must leave that office for an honorable man to occupy,” says Betty Kedisaletse Diale, the EFF provincial leader.
“We will make sure that the statue is swiftly removed. It will not be erected while we are members of the legislature. We will fight it until the end,” she says.
The DA claims it has done its own cost analysis and demands the North West province reveals how much this statue will cost. The DA says there’s a tender out for R6 million ($457,000), but Mahumapelo denies this.
“Where the opposition gets their exaggerated figures, I don’t know. We said six meters, not six million rand. We can’t spend that money. It will be wasteful expenditure. The decision was taken in 2009, it was before my time. I have the responsibility to implement. We are going to honor the families who helped liberation fighters. We want to talk to those who are still alive to have audio and visual records of this historic event,” Mahumapelo told journalists minutes after his state of the province address in Taung.
Mahumapelo says it concerns him when people say they don’t want the statue because they want services.
“There must be a win-win situation. People must have water, but we cannot run away from the fact that in South Africa there were freedom fighters. We cannot erase the history of people who experienced torture. Other countries are honoring their leaders. Why shouldn’t we?” he asks.
Mahumapelo, who calls himself Supranomics, said the statue will create more jobs in tourism.
In Ventersdorp, 150 kilometers from Zeerust, stands another controversy.  A six-meter statue of struggle hero JB Marks cost R4 million ($305,000) and left his family irate. They say the North West government did not consult them.
JB Marks left South Africa in 1963 for Russia to lobby the international community to support the struggle against apartheid. He died in exile in 1972, and his body was repatriated and reburied in his hometown of Ventersdorp, on March 22, 2015. The statue was to be unveiled on the same date this year.
So statues appear destined to divide. In the North West province alone there are two statues, two issues, and two groups of angry people.

Give Us Water  Not Statues

African turned on African. Mobs looted shops, threatened lives and smashed anything they could get their hands on. There were languages from across Africa shouted through the streets of the capital of Pretoria on this confusing afternoon – one language was heard above the rest; the language of the boot.
By 11AM, in Atteridgeville, west of Pretoria, angry youths stood by the side of Townlands Road – rocks in hand. Earlier they had thrown rocks, witnesses said, at any vehicle entering where the so-called foreigners live. A police van stood by, just out of rock range.
For the mob, getting rid of fellow Africans, they call foreigners, was their aim; bigotry their game.
“All those who are selling drugs, nyaope (South African street drug), doing prostitution and human trafficking should voetsek (go away in Afrikaans). Would Robert Mugabe allow me to sell drugs in Zimbabwe? No, never! So why is our government failing us. This is war that’s not going to end. As you can see, it started slowly but let me tell you it’s going to get huge,” says Thembi Skhosana, a South African protester in Marabastad.
In many ways Skhosana epitomized the ugly threat on the streets.
“If our government doesn’t tell these people to go, people are going to die. [The government] is used to killing people, like they did in Marikana, so even now blood will be spilt,” she says.
Skhosana criticized the authorities for failing to clamp down on foreigners without permits.
“It’s best that we take the matter into our own hands. Police have failed. When they take bribes that means they’re also taking things into their own hands; we might as well deal with this our own way.”
On the other side, people also prepared to deal with things in their own way.
In Marabastad, Somali immigrants took up machetes, sticks‚ rocks and knives.
A Somalian shop owner, who sells groceries, Ali Abdul Hasen, came to South Africa as a refugee in 2006 to escape terrorist attacks.
“I came to South Africa for peace, stability and to provide for my family. When I came here I believed I would forget the sound of bullets, and killing each other. In Somalia there are terrorist attacks; you can get injured and die, but not from knives and axes to cut you into pieces,” says Hasen.
“They’re attacking us so we have no choice but to fight back. We have closed all our shops in the townships and came to this area, and now they’re attacking us here, again. We have to counter attack; it’s just tit for tat,” he says.
A woman wearing a peach-colored dress emerged waving a machete and shouting in her mother tongue. I couldn’t make out what she was saying but she wasn’t stopping for anyone.
Then we heard screams and shouting of enraged Somalians, everyone running to the left, chasing a young man in his twenties. When they caught him, the Somalis beat him up. We thought they were going to kill him. Police fired stun grenades to disperse the attackers. A journalist in the crowd was hit in the back by a rubber bullet.
Protesters looted the clothing and home appliance shop of Pakistani Muhammed Yaqoob. The floor was strewn with broken glass and debris. A dismayed Yaqoob walked gingerly over the broken glass, counting the cost of his empty shelves.
“I was at home when I received a call that my shop has been broken into. They took mattresses, shoes and blankets which amount to R50,000 (around $3,800),” he says.
“Life is better when there is peace. We are here to work for our families. And I believe that we are providing jobs, in this shop alone we have three ladies we hired. I’m also involved in feeding schemes providing food to local churches and giving blankets to street kids. But these are the same people who were among the group that stole our stuff,” says Zahid Afzal, chairperson of the area’s business forum.
In 2003, Afzal traveled 7,617 kilometers from Pakistan to Pretoria for business. He makes about R5,000 ($380) a week and sends half of it to his wife and two children. He’s contemplating going home, even if it’s not that safe there.
“Most of us are here because we are under threat of terrorism in Pakistan. There’s lots of bomb blasts happening in every part of the country. If this continues we have no choice but to go back home,” says Afzal.
About 40 shops have closed in Mamelodi and Atteridgeville, in Pretoria, and 12 houses were burned in Rosettenville, south of Johannesburg. According to Brigadier Sally De Beer of the South African Police Service, about 136 people were arrested for looting and being in possessing firearms and drugs.
“I’m actually not willing to stay in South Africa as I can see the situation is like this now, I’d rather go back to Somalia. I’m sure if I’d be killed in my country I would be killed by a terrorist, not by civilians,” says Hasen.
While we were in Atteridgeville, police arrested South African protesters, confiscating a firearm as well as needles and drugs wrapped in a black shopping bag. By this time it was chaos.
“I was born to die. If I die today, it’s fine. But your mother will be killed first. F**k you,” shouted a man, believed to be a Nigerian, raising a middle finger to the mob.
“The dislike of foreigners in the use of foreign labor from Africa, India, and Europe to undermine black economic and political power during the apartheid period… this has conditioned people to see foreigners – particularly Africans, but also those from other regions – as a threat. This sense of threat has been exacerbated by public statements and actions from officials in all parties, police, and people in society at large,” says Loren Landau, from the African Centre for Migration &amp; Society at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Inequality and unemployment make it worse.
“Unless the conditions leading to these attacks change, violence will continue,” he says.
“Public education is a start, but this will not counter the incentives and benefits of violence for those who lead it. We will need the police to hold organizers responsible; to reconsider how we plan and manage our cities and to hold politicians to task when they demonize any group in our society, including refugees and other immigrants.”
According to the Nigerian Union South Africa spokesperson, Eneka Ezinteje, about 800,000 Nigerians are currently in South Africa.   According to reports, about 116 Nigerians were attacked in South Africa in the last two years. In 2016, 20 were killed.
How many Africans have to die before something is done?

There Will Be Blood, Brother

In the Africa I know, we sing and dance when we are happy, when we go to the battlefield, and in times of bereavement. We did it at the memorial service of 86-year-old South African female jazz trailblazer, Thandiwe ‘Thandi’ Klaasen on a warm January day. She died a week before, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.
Could we have celebrated the colorful and illustrious career of Klaasen without the music and renowned Sophiatown style, the multiracial suburb she lived in until it was cleared away by apartheid?
Born in 1931 in Sophiatown, Klaasen and her contemporaries used music to fight the oppressive system and patriarchy. Tired of being an appendage to male bands, she formed a female vocal quartet called the Quad Sisters that shot to stardom with a hit song Carolina Wam, in 1952. They influenced the formation of younger female groups, including Miriam Makeba’s The Skylarks.
On this Wednesday afternoon at the memorial service at Germiston City Hall, east of Johannesburg, songs intertwined with messages of condolences from politicians, musicians and family. One outstanding tribute was the family band’s adaptation of Louis Armstrong’s hit, What A Wonderful World.
&nbsp;
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself Mam’ Thandi,
Was a beautiful soul, A great dancer
and entertainer, If you agree just clap
your hands, Say how did you do.
&nbsp;
This classic was followed by words of Lorraine Klaasen, the image of her mother.
“I was a good observer of my mom. When I grew up I wanted to be like my mother, I wanted to travel the world like my mom and make people happy with my music. And I am really living the promise I made to myself… Music made my mom very happy… She travelled with me as artists but she played that role of a mom…,” says Lorraine, a 2013 Juno Award winner for World Music Album of the Year in Canada.
“What I am going to miss about my mother is her big heart and courage to start something and see it to the end. She taught me to trust in God. She was hardly in hospital. She was a very strong woman and a disciplinarian,” adds her son Roger Phambane.
The snazzy great-grandma’s penchant for wine drew chuckles.
Klaasen’s spells of inebriation were rarely boring. A friend and protégé, Abigail Kubeka, told tales of cooking and empty bottles.
“After all, she was a mother, a housewife and everything. She loved cooking her mutton curry for her husband, Lucas. One day she didn’t realize a cloth fell into her pot. So, she dished out for her husband and Lucas was eating with a fork, but the fork couldn’t pick up the meat. He called her: ‘Thandi, what have you cooked? You said you wanted mutton curry, that’s mutton curry. Ja, mutton curry, but this is a dish cloth,’” says Kubeka to raucous laughter.
Klaasen, among other things, was a magician. She would make a wine disappear in a second, says Nandipha Ndlovu, a granddaughter who called her a role model. Ndlovu is a young doctor in Germiston.
All the speakers agreed on Klaasen’s stoicism and resilience, mentioning how she survived the horror of 1977 when someone – maybe a rival – threw acid in her face. She was in hospital for almost a year.
“That day the fire was set to put an end to her rising star, but they were wrong. That was the day she was truly born. Everyone has got their turning point in their lives. We can rather choose to pursue it, chase your dream or you can turn back, or you can fail. But she didn’t choose to fail,” says Ndlovu.
She would tell people ‘they can burn my face, but they can’t burn my voice,’ says Khubeka.
She also used to joke that she never had one wrinkle in her face. Clearly she never lost the love and respect of her family, nor her sense of humor.

They Can Burn My Face, But They Can’t Burn  My Voice

We meet Dikgang Moseneke exactly three years after Nelson Mandela died on December 5, 2013. Dikgang, the retired deputy chief justice and the executor of Mandela’s will, is in a pink Polo golf-shirt, navy chinos and matching loafers; reclining in a floral sofa in his home study in Pretoria, South Africa’s capital city. It may be three years after Mandela passed away, but Moseneke shows deep emotion as he relives the day the man, who mentored him on Robben Island, left him.
Upon entering Moseneke’s home, two large portraits of Mandela and Robert Sobukwe, the founding president of the Pan Africanist Congress and a fellow Robben Island prisoner, greet you. On the day Mandela passed on, Moseneke was at a year-end dinner for judges and his phone was off.
“Towards the end of the dinner I switched on my phone. There were these several messages from Mama Graca Machel (his wife) and Bongi Mkhabela (CEO of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund), and they were all saying ‘Tata is gasping. You have to be here.’ I ran out of the dinner to [Mandela’s] house in Houghton. And the old man had just surrendered, he had just passed on. And Mama Graca was seated there crying and on the side was [Mandela’s daughter] Makaziwe. It was terrible. It was like a father who had passed on. I have my own father of course, but he was a father on Robben Island,” he says.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4635" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Dikgang-006-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
Politics brought them together a lifetime ago. By the age of 13, in high school, Moseneke, born in Atteridgeville, a township near Pretoria, was engrossed in the African Students Union of South Africa (ASUSA) and later the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). It was a risky passion under apartheid.
“Our headmaster at Banareng (Primary School), Mr Ramopo, had related to us the fables of James Emman Kwegyir Aggrey, a champion of African nationalism, and in 1960 I had been horrified by the Sharpeville (massacre) corpses I had seen on the pages of the newspapers we read daily,” he says.
The headmaster had planted a seed in young minds.
“I hated oppression. I hated the difference and I still hate it now. I dedicated my life in trying to advance equality, to get African people out of bondage, out of oppression. The fact that we have failed to do it now makes me angry. Too few of us have come out of that terrible economic situation for African people. Even then, when I was growing up, I could see the differences between the suburbs and townships, the lawn and the dust, differences in our schools, we had great teachers but the facilities were inferior. Young people have a deep sense of what’s right and wrong.”
It was at the crack of dawn, in March 1963, when Moseneke was at the mercy of a dozen rough policemen who kicked open his front door, ransacked the house and took him away.
“Mercifully, they missed all the banned literature and leaflets that were meant to rouse the populace into a revolt that morning. I froze with fear, but I didn’t cry… They cuffed my arms behind my body. I was under arrest for terrorism, they told my crying mother, but they were not permitted to tell where I would be kept. They blindfolded me and we sped off into the darkness,” Moseneke says.
He faced a gruelling trial on charges of sabotage and treason, and spent nearly a year in solitary confinement in a Pretoria prison.
In July 1963, in the winter rain and piercing wind, Moseneke paid the price for his principles when the guilty verdict came out. The 15-year-old Moseneke and other political prisoners were chained in pairs and cramped in the back of a police van all the way from Pretoria to Cape Town, where they were ferried to Robben Island. In oversized prison clothes, he started a 10-year sentence.
Despite Moseneke’s group affiliating to the PAC, a breakaway of Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC), senior prisoners from the ANC and other banned political formations took the youngsters under their wing. Between toiling in the prison quarry, Moseneke studied English, political science and law through the University of South Africa. He co-founded the Makana Football Association, a prison league.
On the day he was released in 1973, grinning policemen came to his home and told him he was banned for another five years. This meant he was on curfew and couldn’t mix with more than one person at a time.
Mandela remained in prison but the bond between the two was strengthened.
“In fact, I went to see Mandela in Victor Verster Prison before he was released. I did a lot of assignments for him, very critical assignments in his life. And he relied on me in a variety of fronts; for example Mandela asking me to write the interim Constitution.”
Upon retirement in 2016, Moseneke published a book called My Own Liberator: A Memoir, in which he talks of his political rite of passage and time with Mandela.
“I have a chapter in the book where he says ‘Dikgang, I am glad I have found you’. He traced me down to the Kruger National Park, I was in the Malelane Lodge, hiding, and he said ‘Well, Dikgang I am glad I found you, you must come and run the elections’, so I became the deputy of the IEC (Independent Electoral Commission). I made it quite clear I was not going to run for a political office. I am going to become a lawyer, and possibly a judge, but not a political leader.”
Indeed, Moseneke was true to his word. He stayed as a lawyer. Moseneke and George Bizos, the lawyer that defended Mandela in the Rivonia Trial, represented Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, his ex-wife, when she appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1997, for the abduction and murder of a 14-year-old Stompie Seipei. Moseneke was on Mandela’s defence team when he divorced Madikizela-Mandela in 1996. Madikizela-Mandela hired Moseneke when she was fired by Mandela in Parliament for visiting Ghana without permission.
“I won that case against him. Winnie was reinstated. But that didn’t tear us apart, it got us even closer. When the Mandela Children’s Fund was formed, he asked me to chair it, which I did for 16 years non-stop. It was one of his first loves, the children. That’s why we opened the hospital which was conceived under my leadership, and Bongi Mkhabela ran with it. I retired from the Children’s Fund and allowed for a new leader. Otherwise, I would have been like President Mugabe and stayed on forever.”
“This day, I am still the executor of the will. Mandela said: ‘Dikgang will you look after me when I am not here?’ It was big ask, from a big man. I said ‘yes Tata’.”
Moseneke is one man who can say he was close to three South African presidents but he cannot be accused of being a lackey to the powerful.
When Thabo Mbeki took over from Mandela in 1999, he appointed Moseneke to be the judge of the Constitutional Court and as Deputy Chief Justice, in 2005, a position he retired in.
“He asked me to go to Zimbabwe to monitor the (2002) elections; I wrote a report which Mbeki didn’t quite like. It wasn’t made public until the courts ordered that it be revealed. I said the elections weren’t free and fair. Even though we were close but he came to know that Moseneke was independent,” says Moseneke.
Mbeki, who wrote the foreword for his book, had told Moseneke if he had not been recalled in 2007, he would have made him the chief justice.
“Our world view has a lot in common, he’s by and large an Africanist, he believes in African renaissance and the greatness of African people, and the need for them to rise again. I believe in the

The Young Rebel With A Cause That Shone Through Tears  And Violence

At least the new president Nana Akufo-Addo is optimistic. In a press statement he called for reflection on what makes Ghanaians who they are. This year’s theme, according to him, is:  “Mobilizing for Ghana’s Future.” That is, a year for Ghanaians to understand their country’s shortcomings and look at ways to improve.
Good timing, when growth is falling. According to figures from the World Bank, Ghana’s economy grew by 4.9% during the first quarter of 2016. However, overall gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the whole of 2016 could be below the 3.9% achieved in 2015, due to production problems in oil.
Inflation is at 16.7%, made worse by the country’s erratic energy supply that sees businesses put prices up when they use generators.
Victor Ohene Oppong, Founder of Invest Hub, a financial advisory firm in Accra, is, like many of his countrymen, in no mood for jubilation.
<div id="attachment_4605" style="width: 245px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4605" class="size-medium wp-image-4605" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/GettyImages-146126958-235x300.jpg" alt="" width="235" height="300" />Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of newly independent Ghana, Ghana, mid to late 1950s. The British crown colony of the Gold Coast, became its own country of Ghana on March 6, 1957, with Dr. Nkrumah as its first President. (Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images)</div>
“Sixty years ago our founding father, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah famously opined, Ghana your beloved country is free forever, and we all thought managing our own resources would lead to prosperity for everyone but that has simply not been the case. We have issued our fifth Eurobond debt for $750 million and the oil crisis has led to a sharp contraction in oil exports. Businesses are fighting for survival because when there is no cash flow you die. So what is there to celebrate?” he says.
Economic hard times have hit Oppong in the pocket. Last year, he had to lay off five expatriates and close down one of his two branches because of low revenues.
“The debt to GDP ratio stands at about 70% and the last unemployment figures show at least 42% of people are still struggling to find jobs. I think the president is right when he calls this a time of reflection, we need to think very hard and carefully about the future of this country,” says Oppong.
Richmond Nartey, Managing Director of RN Shipping in Tema, agrees.
“Sixty years is a lifetime. For most people that is the age when they begin to think about retirement and enjoying life. But that is not the case for Ghana. The value of our currency is still very weak against the dollar and even though we decided to use our own local currency, many companies still charge in dollars. Foreign currency restrictions in Ghana are still a big issue for our kind of business. What happens to businesses that cannot get their hands on the much-needed dollars to be able to run their business?” says Nartey.
Following the end of decades of rule by former coup leader Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings, Ghana has done its best to clean up its democratic act. Ghana’s two-party electoral system is earning the confidence of the world for its peaceful political transitions. For this reason alone, Mary Osei, Account Manager at HFC Bank, believes there is cause to celebrate.
“This is a time to remember all the things that make this country a wonderful place to live. Yes, there are several challenges we are facing, but which economy isn’t facing challenges? We have to continue to work together to build on the achievements we have and make this nation great,” says Osei.
“If there was ever a day to be proud of your Ghanaian heritage and to be patriotic, there is no better day than March 6, so I do not agree with the naysayers and people who believe there is no need for celebrations,” she says.
Yet the debate over how to celebrate Ghana’s 60th birthday has been fierce. Akufo-Addo set up a 30-member committee to plan the celebrations with a budget of GHc20 million ($4.57 million), which has proved controversial on the streets.
“If there is anywhere that money needs to be spent, it should be in the creative industry instead of throwing it away on branding buses with faces of old presidents or parties. There are failing sectors in the economy where that money could be put to much better use,” says Adamz, a hip-hop artist in Ghana.
The influence of Ghana’s independence over Africa cannot be underestimated. It was the first black African nation to cast off colonialism and inspired many others to follow suit.
&#8220;At long last, the battle has ended!  And thus, Ghana, your beloved country is free forever!&#8221; said Ghana’s first leader Kwame Nkrumah on independence night in 1957. The new leader wore his prison cap – a symbol of his incarceration by the British during his independence struggle – with the letters PG, for prison graduate, embroidered on the front.
Martin Luther King Jr. was with half a million Ghanaians at the ceremony and saw a parallel with Ghana’s freedom and his struggle for civil rights in the United States.
“Before I knew it, I started weeping. I was crying for joy. And I knew about all of the struggles, and all of the pain, and all of the agony that these people had gone through for this moment,” recalled King in an interview years later.
Nkrumah, the father of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which evolved into the African Union, drew many admirers in his first bold steps as a pan-Africanist leader. They included a young teacher by the name of Robert Mugabe who had been seconded to Ghana, by the then Rhodesian government, to a training college.
Mugabe was very taken by the sight of confident Africans in an independent nation and returned home determined to fight for an independent Zimbabwe.
Independence turned out to be bittersweet for Ghana – it was followed by assassination attempts and coups. The idealistic Nkrumah disappointed many when he declared himself president-for-life in 1964.
At least, in the 21st century, democracy in Ghana is closer than it probably ever has been to the shining ideals of 1957.

Ghana At 60

The dirt road to Christopher Mazibuko’s house in Louieville, in South Africa’s Mpumalanga province, is rocky, quiet and roamed by skinny goats.
Mazibuko lives in a single room, made of mud, in Louieville, 20 minutes from Lily Mine that took the life of his wife.
On this bright Sunday afternoon, Mazibuko is wearing casual clothes. He sits on his doorstep; with friends sharing a beer – maybe alcohol eases the pain.
It has been a year since the fatal accident at the Vantage Goldfields-owned Lily Mine, near Barberton, where three people – Mazibuko’s wife Pretty Nkambule, Yvonne Mnisi and Solomon Nyarende – were buried in rubble.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4594" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Lily-Mine-012-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
Lily Mine began as an oxide open pit operation, in 2000, and became a shallow, underground operation.
It has been a year since we last saw Mazibuko. On that day, soon after the tragedy, he was sitting on a small bench, cradling his seven-month-old daughter and five-year-old son. There was the agony of both hope and despair in their eyes.
Mazibuko will never forget his last day with his wife, one of the three entombed in a steel container, 80 meters underground, after a crown pillar collapsed at the open pit gold mine, on February 5, 2016. He shakes his head and sheds a tear.
On that fateful day, Mazibuko, who also works at the mine, was on leave.
He woke up early to prepare a lunchbox for Nkambule and walked her to the bus station. Little did he know that it would be their last walk together.
“She didn’t want me to make her a bigger lunchbox because she thought she’d return home in the afternoon,” he says.
At 7:30AM the bus came to fetch her and the two waved goodbye for the last time.
Around 8AM Mazibuko received a phone call from Nkambule, telling him that she had arrived safely.
“She asked me if I had seen the R200 ($15) she left for me under the mattress to buy the baby food,” he says.
Ten minutes later, before Mazibuko could go to the shop, a neighbor came rushing to his house telling him that he heard that the mine had collapsed.
Mazibuko didn’t believe it and accompanied the neighbor to the mine with the baby strapped on his back.
What makes it more tragic is that Nkambule was supposed to be on leave, but a colleague asked her to stand in for her.
It was a normal day, around 8AM, 115 people had clocked in. Ten minutes later, to the sounds of machinery grinding into life, Nkambule and the lamp room operators had just handed workers lamps.
“I was in the last container; we were having a casual conversation. Then we heard a loud sound, almost like a tyre bursting,” says Henry Sono, an eyewitness, who worked at the mine for 16 years.
“Everything happened so fast. We saw the ground shaking and sinking before swallowing the container with the three trapped. We watched in fear as there was nothing anyone could have done. I left my glasses, my wallet and everything because I had to run for my life,” says Sono.
“I’m confused because everybody who was underground got out but a container that was on the surface sank, why?… And I think they died the same day and same time. There’s absolutely no way you can be trapped underground for a year and still come out alive.”
Rob Devereux, a business rescue practitioner, says it might still take up to a year to retrieve the container. Rescue operations can’t start until enough money is raised.
“We need R130 million ($9.7 million) to develop a decline shaft and then we’ll assess the situation and decide the best way to retrieve it. We sent cameras down and it is extremely dangerous, especially for the rescuers. So, it might take us about more than eight months to get to the container,” says Devereux.
The three missing workers were all breadwinners. Mazibuko will have to raise the children alone.
“At the moment the children are with their aunt because I can’t take care of them, I can’t even buy myself food. The kids have even forgotten about their mother,” he says.
About 600 workers have been left without jobs since the mine collapsed.
In March last year, Mineral Resources Minister, Mosebenzi Zwane, promised families of the trapped a R200,000 ($15,000) compensation and workers who survived R50,000 ($3,750) each. They claim they’ve seen nothing.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4595" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Lily-218-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
Workers and families are hungry and confused.
“The mine and unions don’t communicate with us. They should tell us what’s happening. I’m slowly losing hope of ever getting my wife out,” says Mazibuko.
The mineworkers last got paid in March last year. Sono has 12 children, he says it’s tough.
“The mine says it doesn’t have money to pay us. We are hungry; we can’t even support our families. They sometimes give us food parcels but it doesn’t happen every month,” says Sono.
At the mine, a young strapping man in a khaki uniform, black boots and a rifle slung over his shoulder, guards the locked gate at the entrance. All the families want is the return of the bodies so they can mourn.

The anguish Of Those left behind

Anger Over This Mine   That Became A Tomb

Sure, optimism shone forth in Cape Town like the late summer sun bouncing off Table Mountain, as more than 6,000 powerful people, including more than 20 government ministers, headed for the biggest mining gathering on the planet.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4586" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Chris-Bishop_JC-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
There were more mining companies this year, up 50% on last year, after more than five years of decline. The keen-eyed investors were back and looking for contenders across the continent. A fruitful place to be for the brave, like the motorbike riding maverick Mark Bristow who has spent the last 20 years making money digging gold in mines from Mali to Cote D’Ivoire. Two decades ago many fellow South Africans may have laughed at Bristow for taking risks far from home, in what many see as barren land for mining, but now they’re laughing on the other side of their faces. At the Mining Indaba, Bristow’s Randgold Resources announced it had increased gold production, for the fifth year in a row, plus it was debt free with more than $500 million in cash. Many mining companies would kill to be in that position.
Among the investors looking to blaze a trail across Africa is the Lagos-based African Finance Corporation that began life, in 2007, with a fund of $1.1 billion and now has assets of $3 billion, according to one of its directors, Osam Iyahen. It is a public-private fund, 42% owned by government, that invests in: oil; gas; resources; infrastructure and power. In January, it broke ground on a $200-million bauxite mine in the Boffa region of Guinea Conakry, just 15 kilometers from the coast, with plans to ramp up to 15 million tons.
“I think there has been a rebound in the industry this year,” says Iyahen in Cape Town.
“Last year was a bit of a disaster. People were not interested in talking about transactions; all they were worried about was protecting their downside. There was a lot of sulking going on.”
You could be forgiven for thinking the host nation is still sulking. South Africa, the biggest mining country on the continent, has been like a boxer on the ropes since the power cuts and global financial collapse of 2008. More than 60,000 jobs have been lost since 2012; capital expenditure ground to a halt and the South African industry lost R38 billion (about $2.8 billion) in 2016 alone, in a year when mining output fell 4.8%.
“We have to get our house in order in South Africa, capital is a coward and it goes to the place where there is least risk. We have to remember mining is a global game now and it is easier than ever for foreign investors to move capital around. Our grandchildren will live with the legacy of what we do now,” says Kieran Whyte, a lawyer and partner at Baker McKenzie, who specializes in energy and infrastructure.
The last few months of 2016 were better as commodity prices lifted, according to the Chamber of Mines, especially the risk haven of gold in the wake of the unpredictable, to put it kindly, presidency of Donald Trump.
“I think we are seeing the green shoots here, we just have to watch out for frostbite,” says Roger Baxter, the CEO of the Chamber of Mines, with a smile on the first day.
Baxter was alluding to two cold fronts: the first, the fact that South Africa – that mined more than a third of the world’s gold – is no longer the king of mining. In fact, in these troubled economic times, more and more nations, from West Africa to South America, are ready to accept foreign investors with open arms. A sign of the times is that, on the eve of the Mining Indaba, analysts in Cape Town were extolling the virtues of the copper, gold and coal mining nation of Chile.
The second frosty front is regulatory uncertainty. The South African government, which has met six times with the Chamber of Mines, has been working on amendments to its mining law since December 27, 2012. It promises to gazette the amended Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) by the end of March; the Chamber of Mines feels it could be April.
<div id="attachment_4588" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4588" class="size-medium wp-image-4588" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Mark-Bristow_JC-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />Mark Bristow</div>
What is likely to be in the bill could cause conflict. It is expected there will be greater ministerial discretion and set in stone that all mining companies have to have 26% black ownership at all times. One of the problems is black shareholders, once they have passed their lock-in date, often cash in their stakes by selling to white shareholders, thus diluting the empowerment stake.
The Chamber of Mines, which represents almost all South African mining houses, disagrees strongly with this. It feels that once mining companies have borne the cost of financing black shareholdings it has done its job regardless of dilution. If this so-called “once empowered, always empowered” principle is accepted, many of the country’s biggest mining houses will be compliant overnight.
“I have never seen the Chamber of Mines so aggressive. Normally they get along to go along, but it seems the worm has turned,” says one mining insider in Cape Town.
It is all likely to end up in court where mining lawyer Peter Leon reckons they have a strong case.
“All they have to do is challenge section 100 of the MPRDA. This gives the minister the power to promulgate the act, but doesn&#8217;t give the minister the right to rewrite or amend the act. That would blow it out of the water,” says Leon.
There appears to be little sign of a U-turn by the government over an issue that could further confuse and deter investors.
“We don&#8217;t want to encourage a place where courts take the place of government. We don&#8217;t agree with the norm that if you don&#8217;t agree with us you take it to court,” says South African mining minister Mosebenzi Zwane.
It’s a cold front that could mean a Chile future.

Beware, It’s Chile Out There

With their colorful costumes and tall stature, the Maasai people of the Great Rift Valley region of East Africa are perhaps the most photographed tribe in the world. Their fierce adherence to an ancient way of life is glorified in coffee table books and travel magazines the world over. The Maasai people of East Africa live in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania along the Great Rift Valley on semi-arid and arid lands. The Maasai occupy a total land area of 160,000 square kilometers with a population of approximately 1.2 million people.
I visited the Maasai people of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in 2014. Whilst they live within the confines of the roles they play as glamorous tribals for visiting tourists, they are reportedly constantly battling government initiatives that erode their way of life and meager livelihoods.
Indigenous people such as the Maasai worldwide are between 300-500 million, embody and nurture 80% of the world’s cultural and biological diversity, and occupy 20% of the world’s land surface. Some indigenous people strive to preserve traditional ways of life, and at the same time seek greater participation in current state structures.
But all is reportedly not well for these pastoral farmers since the land they grace has been under threat by mining and wildlife concessions for nearly 50 years. Local indigenous councils have been battling with authorities during this entire period: it seems like both their luck and existence are running out.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-31604" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/32108349462_67d1ac59fa_o-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/32108349462_67d1ac59fa_o-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/32108349462_67d1ac59fa_o-600x401.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/32108349462_67d1ac59fa_o-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/32108349462_67d1ac59fa_o.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
An additional problem for the Maasai apparently is the discovery of vast quantities of helium in the Tanzanian East African Rift Valley. The BBC News in June 2016 reported this find as a “game-changer”, especially as previously-known world supplies are running out.
A group of researchers from Oxford and Durham universities in the United Kingdom, working with the Norwegian helium exploration company Helium One, have discovered what they believe is a vast supply of the element in an unlikely place.
“Their research shows that volcanic activity provides the intense heat necessary to release the gas from ancient, helium-bearing rocks,” according to a statement from the University of Oxford.
“Within the Tanzanian East African Rift Valley, volcanoes have released helium from ancient deep rocks and have trapped this helium in shallower gas fields.”
Robert Richardson, Professor of Physics from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, won the 1996 Nobel Prize for his work on “super fluidity of helium”, and has issued a warning that supplies of helium are being used at an unprecedented rate and could be depleted within a generation.
Professor Richardson warned the gas is not cheap because the supply is inexhaustible, but because of the Helium Privatization Act passed in 1996 by the US Congress. The Act required the helium stores held underground near Amarillo in Texas be sold off at a fixed rate by 2015 regardless of the market value, to pay off the original cost of the reserve. The Amarillo Texas storage facility holds around half the earth’s stocks of helium – around a billion cubic meters of the gas. The US currently supplies around 80% of the world’s helium supplies.
Richardson said it has taken 4.7 billion years for Earth to accumulate the helium reserves; we will have exhausted them within about a hundred years of the US’s National Helium Reserve having been established in 1925.
Helium is used in hospitals in MRI scanners as well as in spacecraft, telescopes, nuclear research and radiation monitors. Until now, the precious gas has been discovered only in small quantities during oil and gas drilling. Using a new exploration approach, researchers found large quantities of helium within the Tanzanian East African Rift Valley.
Prof Chris Ballentine of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford, said: “This is a game-changer for the future security of society’s helium needs and similar finds in the future may not be far away.”
The discovery was reported in the US journal Popular Science.
“To put this discovery into perspective,” Prof Ballentine continued, “global consumption of helium is about 8 billion cubic feet per year and the United States Federal Helium Reserve, which is the world’s largest supplier, has a current reserve of just 24.2 billion cubic feet.”
The Tanzania find could reportedly thus be sufficient to meet global demand for nearly seven years, and may be more than twice as large as the US helium reserve.
This latest find, estimated at 54 billion cubic feet of helium ($3.8 billion), is a major shot in the arm to global helium reserves which have been running dangerously low, with prices rising by 500% in the last 15 years, according to Global Risk Insights (GRI), which provides expert political risk news and analysis on events affecting business, investment, and economic climates worldwide.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-31602" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/31416197504_661d52390c_o-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/31416197504_661d52390c_o-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/31416197504_661d52390c_o-600x401.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/31416197504_661d52390c_o-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/31416197504_661d52390c_o.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
While this scientific find has excited scientists the world over, the other side of the equation is the possible land-use stress to the Maasai people under whose land this discovery has been made. But the Maasai are no strangers to land grabs since the time they moved into the Rift Valley from South Sudan during the 15th century.
During the 16th century, their presence ranged from Lake Victoria to the Indian Ocean and from the highlands near Nairobi to the Serengeti plains in Tanzania. There they peacefully co-existed with other tribes and often times came to the aid of their neighbors during Arab slave raids. The British, who arrived in the late 18th century, saw the Maasai as a nuisance and negotiated a 1904 treaty to move the Maasai to a piece of land in the Rift Valley.
In the 1950s, in a deal that was very similar to the previous dealings, the British successfully convinced the Maasai to move out of the Serengeti land to the Ngorongoro highlands where fellow Maasai already lived in order to create a better wildlife corridor. The Maasai lost the best dry-season rangeland in their area to the benefit of all the wildlife among which they had lived for so many years.
Realistically, the major priorities of the governments of Kenya and Tanzania are economic growth, and both have relied on tourism and other projects to obtain this.
“Modern society demands resources to maintain a standard of living commensurate with people’s expectations, and a suitable level of environmental quality is inherent to this standard. Trade-offs are inevitably made between the activities that provide energy, minerals, timber, and food and the need and desire to preserve ecosystem services. Such trade-offs are often highly controversial and politically volatile,” writes Lee Gerhard of Kansas Geological Survey, in a conference presentation entitled Meeting Societal Resource and Environmental Requirements into the Twenty-First Century.
The author, a chemical engineer by training, has investigated and determined that there is no chemical way of manufacturing helium, and that current supplies originated in the very slow radioactive alpha decay that occurs in rocks. Commercial helium is produced as a byproduct of natural gas processing. Most natural gas deposits also contain smaller quantities of nitrogen, water vapor, carbon dioxide, helium, and other non-combustible materials that must be removed via “upgrading” to produce natural gas with an acceptable level of heat energy.
Once the helium has been separated from the natural gas, it undergoes further refining to bring it to 99.99+% purity for commercial use. The question remains if the helium found in Tanzania would require large operations for upgrading it.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-31601" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/31416197344_64d42ded33_o-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/31416197344_64d42ded33_o-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/31416197344_64d42ded33_o-600x401.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/31416197344_64d42ded33_o-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/31416197344_64d42ded33_o.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
This author also believes that the environmental impact of recovering the helium gas can be reduced by newer drilling technologies such as lateral drilling and gas fracking without disturbing the land above. In my opinion, the Tanzanian government needs to actively seek the cooperation of the Maasai society while trying to create a formula for sharing royalties.
These profits I believe should be invested into the Maasai society through a structured program to prepare them for modern society through vocational education and other cottage industry enterprises. An international NGO should be used as a vehicle for this equitable transfer. I envisage that in doing so all aspects of the helium issue can be attacked: global scientific progress, GDP growth, and most importantly, allowing the Maasai to earn royalties while holding on to their culture, which is a heritage that belongs to all of us globally.
During my planned travels through Maasai lands and the Rift Valley areas in the near future, instead of capturing images of their enactments of various ceremonies popularized by travel magazines, I am planning on spending time inquiring about their progress with the government agencies regarding the helium issue. Watch this space for more.

31416196694_f8259b85b6_o

What You  Don’t See  In Travel Brochures

As 2017 gets into full swing I am reminded of the launch of CNBC Africa 10 years ago on June 1, 2007. To say time flies is an enormous understatement. I can only imagine how the Founder and Vice Chairman of the Africa Business News Group, Rakesh Wahi, must feel considering he first arrived in Africa with just a briefcase in hand 12 short years ago. Now he has a business news conglomerate with Africa’s only continent-wide business channel and Africa’s number one monthly business publication, namely and FORBES AFRICA respectively.
Back in 2007, months of rehearsals finally led to the evening of June 1 when CNBC Africa, with a flick of a switch, came to life. Then South African President Thabo Mbeki was the first interviewee on that auspicious occasion. Corporate South Africa was in full attendance. The rehearsals paid off and CNBC Africa’s first broadcast to 48 countries across sub-Saharan Africa went off without a glitch.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4484" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_3203-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
The next morning, broadcast began in earnest with eight hours of African business aired around the channel’s flagship shows: Open Exchange, Power Lunch, Closing Bell and Business Tonight. Ten years ago, the Africa rising story was burning bright but aggregating business content across Africa was still an enormous challenge. CNBC Africa was pioneering territory that no one else had attempted on such a large scale. Businessmen and women across Africa were not well versed in regular, live television interviews and market commentators were still relatively media shy.
Over the last 10 years the channel has played a significant role in unlocking the continent’s business talent and today, as the depth and breadth of African capital markets rapidly improves, African business interviews are happening with regularity at across the continent.
Today, CNBC Africa is taking regional integration to the next level. It’s hard to beat a real-time pan-African conversation with Lagos, Nairobi, Kigali and South Africa all simultaneously on screen exchanging West, East and southern African business news throughout the day.
Those early days also bring to mind some of the many lighter moments that are an inevitable part of any TV channel’s launch phase. One such moment was with my then co-anchor Byron Kennedy, who now heads up corporate affairs for Vodacom. Let me try and talk you through this.
Business Tonight was in full swing, Byron and I were co-anchoring. In the early days we were heavily reliant on the shows production script which detailed which guests were expected at what time during the show. Two guests down and the live show was progressing well. The third guest was seated and, relying on my script, I confidently introduced the guest as Kevin Weeks, Head of the South African Automobile Association. At this point we were on a wide shot – the audience could see Byron, myself and the guest, who was shaking his head violently. Byron immediately jumped in and stated to both the audience and to me “No, it’s definitely not Kevin Weeks…”. But he had no idea either who the guest was and threw me a hospital pass. The director had at this point not established that we were in trouble and instead of cutting to a commercial break – the default if something goes horribly wrong – he maintained the wide camera angle which meant that the audience was not missing a beat. I had no option but to lean over slightly and asked the now bewildered gentlemen the following question “Excuse me sir, what is your name?” followed by “What are we speaking about?”
Needless to say, we have come a long way from then. I felt much better when I was told to google “BBC Taxi Driver” and realized that it happens to the best of us.
But back to the present and the fact that we are now all grown up, in business years that is. Happy 10th birthday CNBC Africa in 2017; it’s been an incredible journey and I look forward to the next decade as we continue to tell the African business story unlike anyone else.

10 Years  Of Magic And  The Odd Mishap

Walk around any major city in Africa and you’ll see billboards. They’re hard to miss. Apparently, they also make the perfect outdoor sleeping bags.
“The wind can blow as much as it wants, and it can rain, it’s no problem. I can sleep at night, and in the day I can work,” 31-year-old Zota Atiwa, or ‘Alvis’ as he calls himself, says to FORBES AFRICA in the city center of Cape Town, South Africa.
The man behind the idea of making sleeping bags from billboards is 32-year-old Capetonian Oliver Brain. Today, he is handing out bags, exactly as when he started the company, Street Sleeper, two years ago.
After five years abroad, Brain brought back an engineering degree from Oxford University, experience in strategy consulting, and a determination to find a sustainable business model for a social business.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4448" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Oliver_Helga_1-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
Today, Street Sleeper has distributed more than 6,000 sleeping bags, made from billboards, to homeless people in the city, says Suzette Little, Councillor and Mayoral Committee Member in Cape Town.
Street Sleeper is not a charity, it is a social business, says Brain.
“We don´t rely on donations. We provide a product, and that enables us to do what we do.”
According to Rachida Justo, Professor of Entrepreneurship Management at IE Business School in Madrid, Street Sleeper is part of a global trend of upcycling, or turning a used product into a different product.
“Everything related to upcycling is something that fits fantastically to our time, given the issues that we have with garbage, plastic and environmental issues. The upcycling is becoming a trend,” she says.
A bag costs R150 ($11), which funds the production and distribution in Cape Town.
“If you want to gift to another place, you pay for the shipment,” says Brain.
Earlier this year, Street Sleeper received some unusual help.
“We got an advertising grant from Google in the amount of $10,000 a month, which is great for connecting to an international audience,” says Brain.
The international connection is going well. Right now, an international shipment of bags is on its way to New York.
“Just in time for the cold east-coast winter in America,” says Brain.
The billboards have all the characteristics perfect for outdoor sleeping bags.
“They are made of PVC, polyvinyl chloride, a sort of plastic. It’s perfect because it is water and windproof, thin enough to act like a fabric, and highly wear resistant, and you can sew it,” says Brain.
So far, Street Sleeper has used approximately 24,000 square meters, or 12 tons, of material that was destined for a landfill.
While Brain started out sewing the bags himself, he now leaves that to the head of production, Oled Borris, a Burundian refugee. Borris learned to sew in Burundi at the age of 12, but after quitting a government job which led to incarceration, he had to flee the country.
“I can relate to the people we give the bags to, because in a way I am homeless too,” he says.
The company is growing and moving to a bigger location. In addition to Borris, Street Sleeper has so far employed eight disadvantaged people.
Down the road from the current workshop, we meet 39-year old Helga, one of only 21% of female homeless people in Cape Town.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4450" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Oled_Oliver_Sewing-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
Helga is distressed; her bag was stolen while she was asleep.
“Now sometimes I get wet,” she says.
Brain presents her with a new bag and her eyes water.
“I am going to cut this up on the one side, so it can be used as a blanket for me and my husband,” she says.
As Street Sleeper has supplied most of Cape Town’s homeless with sleeping bags, the company is now branching out.
“We’ve been sending bags all over the country,” says Brain. “We’ve realized that in all major cities, Johannesburg, Durban, Pretoria, and even New York, there are a lot of likeminded people, so we want to help them get started.”
New York is not a one-off; in Stockholm, Edinburgh and Dublin, people have received Street Sleeper bags.
“We’re not afraid of letting go of control,” says Brain.
That seems to work, 90% of the bags are picked up by buyers and distributed autonomously, freeing up time for Brain to develop new products.
“We want to branch out and use the same material to make everyday stuff, like beach bags and raincoats,” says Brain.
A smart move, according to Justo, who says that being a social business is not enough to lure customers.
“We’re not there yet, where upcycled products are prioritized. There are still necessary conditions that need to be fulfilled, you need design, convenience and price,” she says.
“You need to take a very honest look at what you do, whether it’s functional or not. We’re very proud of the fact that we’re profitable,” says Brain.
The young entrepreneur has plenty of goals with his business, stretching far beyond the borders of South Africa.
”Every city has these problems, and every city has advertising billboards, so there is a market and supply everywhere.”

No More Pain From Wind And Rain

Kenya is rallying behind Ambassador Dr Amina Mohamed to be the next Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, and Africa has warmly received her nomination. Elections were set to be held on January 31.
With a stellar diplomatic career of over three decades, Mohamed, a Kenyan, is known as an excellent strategist with proven negotiation and managerial skills, having demonstrated solid leadership in every domestic and international post she has held.
She is the serving Chair of the 10th World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference which is the topmost decision-making body of the WTO.
Mohamed rose through the ranks in Kenya’s diplomatic service from legal advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Kenya’s Missions to Geneva and New York, to the highest level of Ambassador/Permanent Representative, Kenya Mission, to the United Nations (UN) in Geneva from 2000 to 2006.
She served as Director, Europe and the Commonwealth and Director Diaspora from 2006 to 2007 and was Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Justice, National Cohesion and Constitutional Affairs in 2008.
In July 2011, she joined the UN as Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) based in Nairobi.
In April 2013, she was appointed by Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta as Cabinet Secretary (Minister) for Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Kenya.
Weeks before the AU Commission elections, Mohamed spoke to CNBC Africa. Excerpts from the interview:
Q: You’ve had many firsts as a woman in leadership in Africa; just walk us through your journey?
&nbsp;
A: The first time I did something that I guess laid the road-map for whatever else came after was when I was elected to chair the International Organization for Migration Conference which is a council for migration. At that time, Kenya was actually the only African country that was a member of the International Organization for Migration. And when I was approached, I told them that the only reason I would agree to be put up as a candidate for the chairmanship would be if they would open up the organization for Africa, and would be able to attract more countries into the organization.
So we reached an understanding and I chaired it and during my chairmanship, that one year, I brought in a few African countries, and the rest is actually history, because now I think the largest group of countries that are members of the IOM are African countries, and from then on, I think in especially the kind of job that we do as ambassadors, you are called upon to show your commitment to the continent by agreeing to chair different bodies.
And so I was fortunate, I was privileged that the African group in the cities that I served in saw it fit to elect me over and over again, and so it’s something that I enjoyed doing, I was committed to doing and I think the record is not a bad one.
Q: You are now running to be chairperson of the AU Commission, tell us about the drive behind this decision?
&nbsp;
A: Kenya has put up my candidateship for the position of Chairman of the African Union Commission. Why am I running? I think we have a lot of value that we can bring to the table; we are also at a good time in the history of this continent. The first thing that comes to mind is the framework that we have. We have a framework that was agreed on by all African countries that needs a faithful implementer to put in place.
It’s a framework called Agenda 2063, for inclusive growth and sustainable development and it has a number of amazing aspirations for the continent. I think it’s actually time for East Africa because of the track record we have also set as a community, as an East African Community in what we have done.
We created a model for others to emulate and so there’s just a feeling that it was time for us to run for this position and I would be a good candidate for that because again I can bring people together, I have never come across a challenge that cannot be resolved, I look at challenges actually as opportunities. And I believe that we all know what we need as a continent to move us forward. One should look at the leaps we have made.
We are a young continent, we have done amazing things, we – many of us – have come up with new constitutions, constitutions that are based on our own realities, not on realities that come from elsewhere, also we look at our own specificities, our own individualities as countries.
For us as a continent, it’s actually excellent that we have such a young population.
It’s a young population that’s creative and innovative that are drivers of the economy and they are also the future and the present and therefore whatever they do, they know what they would like to put in place, for themselves and for their own children and for posterity I guess.
So we actually are in a situation where we can lead and not follow, because the problem is ours, the challenge is ours and it’s a wonderful opportunity to use, to propel the continent to the greatest possible heights.
&nbsp;
Q: Briefly take us through what an AU Commission led by you will focus on, looking at the challenges Africa is facing…
&nbsp;
A: I think industrialization, without any doubt. It is the only one that has the ability to reduce poverty, create the jobs that we need and to move the continent [forward]. And I think following that, trade, because trade brings us together, which is a unifier if you like.
We need to make sure that our infrastructure, whether it’s land, sea or air, is seamless. It doesn’t take a day, it’s a process but we need to get on with it. We need to remove the obstacles that are low-lying fruit… they can be removed easily.
One of those is allowing the easier movement of people, business people, of capital, services and goods. There is no reason why Kenya should import; and I am using as an example, if we did not have the dairy sector and we needed butter, milk or cheese, there is no reason why we should import that from 10,000 miles away; if we can just go across the border, into the next country and import from our neighbors.
The only reason why that has been difficult is because of the infrastructure deficit that we are faced with and we need to address that and address it quickly.
In this country we have tried to do it, in the region we have tried to do it with the SGR, with the road infrastructure that we have put in place, with the modernization with the port that has been done over the last few years, with the modernization of our airport, so those are the things we need to do across the continent so that our young people can move from one country to another, bring ideas, bring creativity, bring innovation, but also find jobs.
So apart from industrialization, and obviously there you have to address the infrastructure deficit, trade and the need to trade amongst ourselves; the intra-Africa trade is at 13%, and there is no reason for that. It should actually be at least at 30%; we should, eventually have 60% of trade within the continent.
This is where the population is, this is where the fastest growing middle-class is, and obviously with that, you have a consumer market, so this is where most of the trading should actually take place.
&nbsp;
Q: The outgoing AU Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has been very vocal about peace and security. Share with us your vision…
&nbsp;
A: She’s also been very passionate about agriculture, because agriculture has the ability to transform communities and societies very quickly and there’s a need therefore again as a reason of the youth to make agriculture trendy and productive for the youth.
But you know you cannot undertake development unless you actually have a peaceful, stable and predictable environment. You must have peace and security, without it you can’t have growth.
And so it’s been actually a rallying call of Madam Zuma, to silence the guns and we’ve agreed that we would try to do that at least by 2020, if we can’t do it sooner. I believe that if we all came together and are always committed as she is, we should be able to do that before the 2020 deadline.
Africa does not manufacture ammunition except for a few countries. Africa is resolving most of its conflicts and there are very few countries today, of the 54, that are still engulfed in conflict, in fact there are probably less than five that are engulfed in active conflict, and therefore we are at a place where we should be talking about a peaceful Africa, a secure Africa, a growing Africa, a resilient Africa.
So it’s one of the priorities. We actually addressed most of the issues that were connected to decolonization, that peace and security became a big issue and we started addressing it.
I think if we are focused we can actually deal with it, it’s been successful in the majority of countries and of course there will be hiccups, back and forth, but I think a majority of the countries have gone beyond the stage where conflict is a daily affair, so we need to continue working on it and I think we should be able to get it done.
&nbsp;
Q: What’s your vision on
driving governance?
&nbsp;
A: We have a very comprehensive and all-inclusive agenda. And that is also an issue that is in our Agenda 2063; we are more transparent, we are more open. Again, we are a young continent, the youth is very demanding, we are involving more and more people in leadership – apart from the youth, the women that are coming in jobs now.
So I think today Africa is at a better place, in terms of the rule of law, in terms of governance than it has ever been, and I think the only way forward is to keep improving that.
And as I said before, we [Kenya] enacted our constitution in 2010. Immediately after its enactment – I was in Justice, Permanent Secretary there – we got a dozen requests from countries that wanted to come and look at our constitution and see whether there was anything they could borrow from there that would fit their own circumstances. Because at the end of the day, the instrument is only as good as its implementation.
And you will only implement something that you are really comfortable with, and so the whole purpose of coming to study and look at what we are doing is, ‘will this fit into my own circumstance, is it something I can do now, is it something that can be delayed a bit’.
As you know, our own constitution had transitional clauses, what we needed to do now, what we could a little later; some of the provisions could only actually be fully implemented in five years, six years, and 10 years. So we had actually time periods in the constitution for implementation of different provisions.
So I think it’s the same everywhere, but the governance situation on the continent is better than it’s ever been and I know it’s going to continue improving.
&nbsp;
Q: Your bid has been warmly
accepted across a good number of countries, over 25 African countries. What are your expectations as we head towards January 2017?
&nbsp;
A: We are campaigning, I was told by one of our leaders that campaigns are personal, you must ask for a vote and that if you don’t ask for a vote, even your own brother can vote against you, so we are going across the continent asking everybody for their support and trying of course to obviously convince them that we have a good candidate. They have been very receptive, very warmly received, wonderful arrangements put in place for us… we are encouraged by the reception and the support that seems to be coming across as well.
&nbsp;
– Gitonga is a news producer at CNBC Africa and interviewed Mohamed at the CNBC Africa studios in Nairobi in November, Kenya; for the full text of the interview, visit
www.cnbcafrica.com.

‘Our Strength Lies In Coming Together’

It is a hot, windy summer’s day in Road Port, Harare. A Coca-Cola can blows merrily down the street. The can has freedom many others here envy. This place is seized by an oppressive gloom. It is filled by a crowd of people pushing, shoving, shouting, buying and selling. There is dirty water flowing down the street and litter fills the potholes. Yet, this grubby place is seeing more trade than Zimbabwe’s biggest banks. Here, the black market is king and the new bond notes are pawns that can be sacrificed.
“The bond notes came recently and we are business people so we have already seen an opportunity to make a bit of money. We don’t see bond notes as having any sort of value, if you have 100 bond notes, I will give you US$70,” says Tapiwa Makoni, an informal money trader.
The Reserve Bank may say bond notes are 1:1 to the US dollar; the free market says no.
“People are already getting desperate for US dollars, especially when they are traveling out of the country. They are happy to get any real currency from us at whatever rate,” he says.
It all began in May, when the Reserve Bank Governor, John Mangudya, announced the bond note. Mangudya argued the notes would ease the cash crisis that saw the US dollar become scarce. It was going to come in gradually.
“The Reserve Bank has established a US$200 million foreign exchange and export incentive facility which is supported by the African Export-Import Bank to provide cushion on the high demand for foreign exchange and to provide an incentive facility of 5 percent on all foreign exchange receipts, including tobacco and gold sale proceeds,” says Mangudya.
The bond notes don’t seem to be helping much; as they too are restricted. The withdrawal limit of bond notes is $50 per day and a $150 per week.
Despite the introduction of the bond notes – that were touted by authorities as a solution to the liquidity crisis – there seems to be little improvement.
“There is a shortage of bond notes and there seems to be less US dollars on the streets. We used to get US$100 a day, but now my bank gave me only US$50 and 25 bond notes. The money is not enough because I need cash for my buying and selling business,” says a Harare trader who refused to be named.
Neville Mandimika, Africa Strategist at Rand Merchant Bank, says the bond notes are non-convertible.
“It is by decree that it is 1:1. The problem we are facing now is that because of the misunderstanding, fear and mistrust currently circulating in the economy, the US dollar is beginning to trade against itself because actual cash is more valuable than money in the bank because of the cash shortages. So [1:1] is of theoretical value but on the street, the market is saying otherwise,” says Mandimika.
According to Mandimika, the panic and kneejerk reaction has seen people holding on to their US dollars and moving it out of the country, which mitigates against the cash crisis being eased.
“That’s why the campaign by the authorities has been to reassure the market that this is not a fully-fledged return of the Zimbabwe dollar… The bond notes will spur inflation but not hyperinflation; at least we are not there yet… Everyone is trying to adjust.”
People have to adjust to it. If you have banked money in US dollars, you may get it in bond notes. This is not a currency and can’t be traded for another currency. Mandimika says Zimbabwe is likely to continue decelerating on a multi-quarter basis because of the debilitating liquidity crisis that continues to grip it.
“The continuation of the liquidity crunch has fueled the rise of the parallel market (US dollars are trading at a premium to the bond notes) which will likely add to the inflationary pressures. Although the latest inflation prints (November 2016), shows the year-on-year figure is still negative but month-on-month numbers suggests renewed inflationary pressure. This will likely be the trend for this year in the absence of a more permanent solution to the liquidity crisis,” he says.
It means the bond notes have been met with mounting anger and questions of legality. The city is full of protest banners mounted on brick walls, advertising billboards have #NoToBondNotes plastered all over them. Peaceful protesters are thrown into jail. One of them was Fadzayi Mahere, an advocate of the High Court and Supreme Court of Zimbabwe.
“Peaceful demonstrations are a constitutional right under Section 59. A demonstration had been organized by another entity, we believed in the cause. Unfortunately the organizers got abducted so the demonstration couldn’t happen,” says Mahere.
Once Mahere and her friends got news of the abduction, they decided to sit peacefully in the park. A handful of police came and ordered her and seven others into police vehicles.
“[Our rights weren’t read to us] in fact, we weren’t informed of the charges we were facing at that time. As citizens we are required by the law not to resist arrest so we went with them to the police station&#8230; We weren’t told about what charges we were facing until later on in the evening. We were asked to pay an admission of guilt fine and as a matter of principle, I was not prepared to admit guilt… the charges we were faced with were unfounded and trumped up,” says Mahere.
This meant spending the night in a filthy cell at the Harare Central Police Station. The tiny cell is cold and dark. There are no mattresses and blankets are infested with insects. The toilet is broken and water and urine floods the floor where some have to sleep, and no sanitary towels available.
“This is degrading to anyone. No one should be subjected to such conditions, even if you are held in cells pending trial. It was a long night. I am grateful I was in a group so there were moments of humour,” she says.
Mahere says, as unlawful as their arrest was, so are the bond notes. She says the term “bond note” is not defined anywhere in the Reserve Bank Act or the Banking Act.
“Bond note is not a term of conventional economics but an invention on the part of the Governor. It is clear that the law does not empower the Governor to create this, with respect, fictitious money,” says Mahere.
&nbsp;
However, Patrick Chinamasa, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, argues, in a statement, that under existing legislation, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has the power to issue bond notes.
“I need to highlight that under existing legislation the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has power to issue Bond Notes in terms of the provisions of Section 7 of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Act Chapter (22:15). The Export Incentive Scheme could also have been introduced through Section 2 of the Exchange Control Act (Chapter 22:05) which empowers the President to make regulations relating directly or indirectly to exchange transactions and the control of imports into and exports from Zimbabwe, and payments,” says Chinamasa.
Mahere, however, argues that the Reserve Bank Act authorizes issuing Reserve Bank vouchers, not bond notes, when there is a shortage of currency of any denomination to pay civil servants or employees of the state.
“The shortage must be shown to require urgent action in the interests of public order or the economic interests of the state. The justification given by the Governor for the creation of bond notes is, therefore, inconsistent with section 42B of the Reserve Bank Act. The Governor’s justification for the curious move relates to foreign exchange stabilization and an unsatisfactory attempt to ease the cash crisis.”
“Within a few months, because we are such an import driven economy, when people are trying to replenish their stock, we will see what happens, we will see what our government does when it has the scope of printing money. We have seen that in 2008,” she says.
Mahere adds that her problem is not the bond note itself but the refusal by government to address issues at their root and attend to the fundamental causes to economic problems in Zimbabwe.
According to the Reserve Bank, the Retailers Association of Zimbabwe, fuel companies, representatives of the various business associations and the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe agreed on the use of bond notes as a medium of exchange in the country. Most traders are accepting the bond notes but worry about their future.
“I hope this will not be a repeat of 2008 where government will start printing money that is actually worthless. I have to buy my stock in South Africa because no company makes the hardware I sell here. I heard some petrol stations are already rejecting it,” says Clive Moyo, a cabinet and coffin handle trader.
The argument goes on. What is clear is people are buying and selling pieces of paper they aren’t sure about.

It Is Bond Belief

The chairman of VBS Mutual is a tall, dark and imposing chartered accountant; on this late summer’s morning he is fed up. Tshifhiwa Matodzi and his shareholders suffered slings and arrows when they opted to loan President Jacob Zuma millions to refund the taxpayer for Nkandla. At the time politicians were baying for the bank&#8217;s blood and media was digging for dirt.
Soon after it was announced that the president paid the money through VBS Mutual in September, a small bank founded in Venda in 1982, in northern South Africa, the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) issued a statement demanding disclosure.
“While both Zuma and VBS Mutual Bank claim a home loan agreement or mortgage does exist between the two parties, there’s no evidence of such a bond registered in the deeds registry, raising the question as to whether a home loan indeed does exist,” says the DA.
It was a deal that the press and opposition in Parliament thought fishy; they thought the loan was funded by the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), a retirement fund that has a 25% shareholding in VBS Mutual. Eight months later, Matodzi, suited and booted in a Melrose Arch hotel in northern Johannesburg, was indignant, but composed.
“There were no underhand dealings. They all said go find out if there’s bribery involved. If you do things right, these things fall out. People realized that we are not interested in politics, I have never met the president. They came with their corruption accusations, but they found nothing. There were racism undertones,” says Matodzi.
On December 14, the DA leader Mmusi Maimane’s spokesman, Mabine Seabe, said neither the office of the president or VBS Mutual complied with their demand to see the proof of payment.
“It is in the public interest to ascertain whether a loan exists; what the conditions of the loan are; whether Jacob Zuma has personally signed surety on the loan, and not any of his cronies; and what effect, if any, does this have on the court’s finding that the president must personally pay back the R7.8 million determined by the National Treasury,” says the DA.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4403" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_4395-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
“We cannot provide the DA or anyone with a proof of payment of the President&#8217;s loan or any of our clients&#8217; because of the confidentiality rule and agreement that governs the relationship between the bank and its clients. It is important to note that the National Treasury did make it publicly known and confirmed that the President has honored the said payment through a loan from VBS Mutual Bank. This confirmation was made public to the DA and everyone that the President has paid through a loan from VBS Mutual Bank,” says a response from VBS Mutual.
Matodzi decries controversial stories around the President’s loan, questioning the bank’s funding of rural homes without title deeds. Cynicism emerged on radio stations, in particular Power FM, where the bank was discussed. One online response said: “What are the odds that within a year this little mouse of a bank will have to be bailed out by the PIC because of a cashflow problem due to a certain big lender not honoring his commitments?”
Again Matodzi was indignant.
“It was not the biggest loan, it was not even in our top 50, but it was the biggest profile simply because it’s the president. The bank has the assets of R1.2 billion ($87.5 million), so you may understand that a R7 million ($500,000) is a drop in the ocean. The original name was Venda Building Society, so our main core business was funding homes in traditional Venda where other banks didn’t want to go,” he says.
City Press’ investigative and award-winning journalist, Sipho Masondo, was one of the journalists Matodzi claimed to have written hearsay about VBS Mutual. In one of the articles entitled ‘What is VBS Mutual Bank? Everything you need to know’, the newspaper alleged Matodzi and Robert Madzonga, the Chief Operating Officer, ran the bank with impunity. Masondo said the bank’s board didn’t approve of a R136-million ($9.9-million) loan for the two to buy a 54% stake in Afric Oil but they took the loan anyway. Masondo further alleged Zuma intended to crown the Venda king, a VBS shareholder, around the same time the loan was awarded. But when FORBES AFRICA asked Masondo to reiterate his claims in December, he was uncooperative.
Matodzi denies any wrongdoing.
“Whether it was in Nkandla or Venda, to us it was not a problem. I think it was the lack of education and a political issue that created the talk about the President’s loan. Countries should be built from their rural areas, and that’s what VBS has been doing better than any other bank. As a business we are exploiting the vacuum that has been created by mainstream banks,” says Matodzi.
Matodzi was still in primary school when the bank was formed by the Venda Bantustan government and traditional leaders. He says in the 1980s it was a go-to bank for the local people. It was during those early days he had the epiphany that when he finished university he would help the bank grow.
VBS Mutual became a mutual bank in 1990. Now it is one of three in the country, along with Ithala Development Finance Corporation and Finbond Mutual Bank.
VBS Mutual, which has only four branches in South Africa, including the headquarters in Johannesburg, was in the red until 2013 when Dyambeu Investments acquired a majority stake. Dyambeu partners, including Matodzi, property magnate David Mabilu, telecoms businessman Maanda Phalanndwa, and the Venda King Toni Mphephu Ramabulana, own 26% of the shares.
Matodzi, who served as an IT auditor at various South African banks while doing articles at KPMG, says one of the pillars of their turnaround strategy was the repositioning of the bank as a small- and medium-enterprise (SME) bank. In a year, more than R450 million ($32.8 million) was advanced to SMEs. He claimed 99% repayment from rural clients.
It may be a small bank but it will be remembered for lending always to the big man.

Category: Sometime in Africa

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

More from Sometime in Africa

The Call Of The African Kingdom

The Fight Over Statues Never Stands Still

Give Us Water Not Statues

There Will Be Blood, Brother

They Can Burn My Face, But They Can’t Burn My Voice

The Young Rebel With A Cause That Shone Through Tears And Violence

Ghana At 60

Anger Over This Mine That Became A Tomb

Beware, It’s Chile Out There

What You Don’t See In Travel Brochures

10 Years Of Magic And The Odd Mishap

No More Pain From Wind And Rain

‘Our Strength Lies In Coming Together’

It Is Bond Belief

Bank On Us Mr President